Submit a Prompted Command to Batch

August 31, 2005 Hey, Ted

If I put a question mark before a command name in a CL program and run the program interactively, the system prompts the command, allows me to fill in the blanks, and then executes the command. Is there a way to prompt the command, then send it to batch for execution?

–Mark

Yes, there’s an API for this sort of thing. First, here’s the type of code you’re running interactively.

? SAVOBJ
MONMSG     MSGID(CPF6801) EXEC(RETURN)

The system prompts the Save Object (SAVOBJ) command. If the user presses Enter, the system runs the command. However, if the user presses F3 or F12 to cancel the prompt, the Monitor Message command takes over.

If you want the command to run in batch, you need the QCMDCHK API. It is like the QCMDEXC API most of us are very familiar with in that it accepts the same parameters.

Here’s an example that prompts a Save Object command and submits it to batch.

DCL        VAR(&CMD) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(1024)
DCL        VAR(&CMDLEN) TYPE(*DEC) LEN(15 5) VALUE(1024)

CHGVAR     VAR(&CMD) VALUE('?SAVOBJ')
CALL       PGM(QCMDCHK) PARM(&CMD &CMDLEN)
MONMSG     MSGID(CPF6801) EXEC(RETURN)

SBMJOB     RQSDTA(&CMD)
SNDPGMMSG  MSG('Your command was submitted to batch.') +
           MSGTYPE(*COMP)

The &CMD variable is initialized to a prompted SAVOBJ command. Calling QCMDCHK causes the system to prompt the command and change the value of &CMD as modified by the user from the prompt screen.

After QCMDCHK runs, use Submit Job (SBMJOB) to start a batch job. Notice that the command is passed through the Request Data (RQSDTA) parameter, not the Command (CMD) parameter.

–Ted